1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to customer service systems and call centers, and more particularly to a customer service and enterprise workflow management method and system that enables, among other things, handling and routing workflow items on a manual, semi-automated, or fully automated basis.
2. Description of Related Art
Workflow items take many forms, but are generally divided into two categories. First, there is the category of Time-Varying Media (TVM), which includes phone calls, e-mails, internet-based chats, voice messages, and other real-time and non-real time media interactions. TVM are workflow items to the extent that they often act as a trigger, or entry point, for subsequent work. Second, there is another broad category of workflow items dealing with the flow of documents or electronic transactions representing non-TVM tasks. These non-TVM items are often called Workflow Documents or Workflow Transactions. For example, these tasks are often associated with activities such as filling out a medical claims form, a loan application, or a trouble ticket.
TVM and Workflow Documents are often managed differently and with a disparate array of hardware and software. For example, TVM-based interactions are generally facilitated with the aid of telecommunications systems such as a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) or an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD), which route telephone calls from a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) or the Internet (e.g., Voice Over IP). In the case of phone calls, these are switched to customer service representatives (“agents”) and afforded some value-added intelligence in routing based on pre-determined routing rules based on the caller's phone number and the number dialed. The number callers are calling from is referred to as an Automatic Number Identification (ANI) and the number they are calling is a Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS). In general, these numbers can be extracted from the phone line in order to make a determination of how the call should be routed based on database look-ups wherein customer information is matched with ANI and DNIS to aid in the disposition of the call. Further to these routing decisions are data dealing with the skills that are possessed by the agents. By matching the skills of an agent coincident with the telephone calls that are coming in to a PBX or ACD, customer service can be enhanced by routing callers to the best-suited or best-skilled agent. This is in addition to the “default” treatment of routing calls simply based on the availability of agents. This skills orientation is referred to as skills-based routing.
Dealing with TVM-based interactions also goes beyond the switching of telephone calls. In addition to telephone calls, the same routing disciplines may be applied to emails sent by customers. The same can also applied to Web-Based Telephone CallBack requests and Web-initiated Chat sessions. In fact, these communications, represented by a plurality of media types can be handled with what's commonly referred to as a multi-channel or multi-media ACD and is described in commonly owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/798,226, entitled “Call Center Administrator Manager,” the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference in its entirety.
Likewise, there are commercial systems available for handling non-TVM workflow items such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) based forms, eXtensible Markup Language (XML) based documents, proprietary trouble tickets, order fulfillment forms, and a plurality of standard and non-standard order entry and supply chain-oriented tasks and associated documents. For example, the management of these documents and related tasks are offered as part of commonly available Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, and Document Imaging systems, and Web Content Management (WCM) systems, and Learning Content Management (LCM) systems.
There are many ways the routing of documents can be automated or semi-automated. As with PBXs and ACDs that handle TVM-based interactions, Workflow Document systems such as those represented by CRM and Document Management industries can be programmed to route documents and other work items to knowledge workers. These knowledge workers may or may not also be characterized as “agents” as the workers associated in answering TVM-based interactions on a PBX or ACD.
While the means to route workflow items (both TVM and Workflow Documents) and tasks can be handled with disparate and dedicated platforms each suited to its particular task, it is nonetheless difficult to make the “life length” of a series of workflow tasks a seamless interaction. The seamlessness and cohesive flow of work items and tasks in any organization is a mark of efficiency. Such efficiency is associated with getting tasks performed easily and quickly. The ease with which these tasks can be completed equates to significant financial benefits for the enterprise. These financial benefits are realized as a result of getting each knowledge worker to produce more work or eliminating the need for more knowledge workers.
Take, for example, the workflow associated with handling a customer request for a loan and further approving that loan and ultimately delivering the item to the customer which was the original motivation for acquiring the loan. The request for the loan may be triggered as a result of a phone call from the customer (likewise that request may be triggered by e-mail, chat, etc.). Certain information may be gathered from the customer as a result of that interaction. The “content” of that interaction may include customer information such as the name, address, household earnings and other items required to start a loan approval procedure.
After the initial call (trigger event) has completed, it is a common practice for the agent to do a “wrap-up” procedure. For example, as a “wrap-up” procedure, the agent who dealt with the phone call may access a separate application, not associated with the PBX or the ACD, in which a form or other document is presented to the agent. The presentation of that form or document is typically managed by a separate application driven by a CRM or Document Management system. That form may be partially filled-out based on the data collected by the agent for further disposition by a supervisor or some other knowledge worker who does not necessarily take phone calls.
Subsequent to the originating call and wrap-up workflow, other work items may be “spawned” as a result. For example, the original document may be routed to a subsequent knowledge worker or supervisor. For example, a credit check with a credit reporting agency may have to occur. This may be triggered automatically based on custom software in a CRM application, or this may be accomplished semi-automatically with the intervention of another knowledge worker. Often, customized routing algorithms will determine the logic flow or passing of the document from one person to another. Software which is entirely separate from the PBX or ACD software may be used to define the skills and/or availability of workers to handle these work items.
Further still, a supervisor may be consulted with or may need to “touch” a document or electronic form in order to authorize the final disposition of the loan. The workflow may continue in the form of sending a fax or letter or email to inform the customer that she has been denied the loan. Or a phone call may ensue to alert the customer of that disposition. On the other hand, the workflow may continue in the form of an acceptance, whereupon subsequent documents and work items are handled to order and ship the item to the customer if his or her loan is approved.
In this simple scenario, a complex workflow has been described. There may also be similar scenarios in which dozens of steps ensue and also involve four or five knowledge workers. However, the skills required or the priority of the customer, or the preferences of the customer, or the availability of the knowledge workers, or the work item preferences of the knowledge workers are not universally known, let alone universally considered in the hand-off off these work items from system to system. Such is the state of integration between TVM-based systems and non-TVM-based systems for managing workflow.
It is clear that there are some common elements in the handling of items associated with TVM and Document-related Workflows. The table below shows the relationships between these items from a workflow management perspective.
Time VaryingDocument-relatedScenario ExampleMediaWork ItemType of personContact center“Agent” orinvolved“Agent”knowledge workerHardware/SoftwareACD, PBX, Email,Imaging, CRM, OrderChatEntryWorkforceAgents, AgentWorkers, Supervisors,ConsiderationsSupervisors, GroupsGroupsSkillsCustomer Service,Approval, Order Entry,ConsiderationLoansShippingDatabaseANI, Workgroups,Documents, Customers,ConsiderationsCustomers.PartsInfrastructureTelephones, Computers,Telephones, Computers,ConsiderationsLAN, WebLAN, Web
This is by no means a comprehensive list, but is shown to accentuate the similarities in complexity and requirements between handling phone calls, emails, chats, etc. (TVM) versus Document-related work items. One way of looking at the difference between these two “worlds” is that TVM are typically customer-facing and document-related, or internal transaction-related work items are often not customer-facing and more related to fulfillment activities or sometimes back office activities. This is not to say that forms and electronic documents are not often used by customers. What's important to consider is that despite the similarities in the need to track workforce skills, customer data, and the routing of interactions and work items, completely disparate systems have been developed to support these activities. Attempts are routinely made to “integrate” these disparate systems, but the architectures and approaches to managing a phone call, let's say, versus routing a medical claims form inside of a healthcare insurance company are completely separate.
This separation between the handling of TVM vs. non-TVM is costly and requires custom, one-off development to link these disparate systems together. An unfortunate outcome of the need to develop custom software to integrate these disparate systems together is an inherently inefficient flow of work. For example, many more “data dips” are often required. Multiple “routing engines” and software are often required for each workflow item. The negative impact, beyond the cost to acquire, program and maintain disparate systems, is a slower response time. These slower response times, as previously mentioned, are costly, but slower response times may also have a negative impact on customer service.
For example, slower response times may be manifest in having to ask the customer more than once to offer information that was not passed from one workflow process to another.
In addition, slower response time may also be manifest in the inefficient routing of subsequent work items to knowledge workers who may not have the requisite skills to efficiently handle the work item. This is often exacerbated owing to the fact that different parts of the workflow are associated with different control systems that may or may not have a skills-based reference point or may or may not have a means to share skills-based data between reference points.
In addition, slower response time may also be manifest in another workforce-related issue dealing with the motivation of each knowledge worker to process the transactions that are linked to their sense of job satisfaction. The is a school of thought generally embraced by contact center managers, for example, that the motivation and satisfaction of contact center agents has a direct and positive correlation to their own sense of satisfaction in completing certain tasks in favor of others. This has necessitated the likes of contests or bonus programs used to cajole the workforce into completing certain tasks in favor of others. For example, a contact center supervisor may offer tickets to a show or a gift certificate to the agent who completes the most number of outbound calls in a certain time period. Much thought and work is put in to creating, promoting and administering such a bonus programs. What is not intuitively obvious to practitioners with average skill in the art is that the development of workflow items and “pools” may be developed that allow workers to either automatically indicate work item preference or dynamically allocate work items based on criteria associated with individual or group preferences.
In addition, slower response time may also be associated with a lack of cohesiveness on the priority of each customer and how that priority is dealt with across disparate systems and databases. For example, a caller may receive priority in the handling of an ACD interaction. But it is not necessarily the case that the workflow items “spawned” from that original transaction will receive the same priority as the priority afforded to the caller in the first place. If all of the workflow items associated with post-wrap-up work go in to the same “bin,” then the call treatment on the front-end of the process is a moot point. In short, unless the enterprise can provide a consistent tie-in of priority to the entire life-length of the associated workflow, not only does slower response time have an impact, but this may manifest itself in the overall dissatisfaction of the customer.